Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Foucault in just one hour. The French philosopher Michel Foucault set about his task rather like a historian. After painstaking research, he concluded that knowledge and power were intimately related throughout history.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Wittgenstein in just one hour. Ludwig Wittgenstein saw himself as ‘the last philosopher’. In his view, philosophy in the traditional sense was finished. A superb logician, Wittgenstein distrusted language and sought to solve the problems of philosophy by reducing them to the purest form of logic. Everything else - metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, finally even philosophy itself - was excluded.

One of the two major philosophical traditions of the 20th century was linguistic analysis, derived largely from Wittgenstein. The other, diametrically opposed, came from Heidegger, and its fundamental question was: ‘What is the meaning of existence?’ For Heidegger, this was not a query that could simply be ‘analysed away’ - it was beyond the reach of logic or reason. This was the primary ‘given’ of every individual life. To confront it, Heidegger needed to develop an entirely new form of philosophy. Here is a concise, expert account of Heidegger’s life and philosophical ideas that is entertainingly written and easy to understand.

Following on from the incredible online success of the History in an Hour titles - now there’s a philosophy series for busy people, on the go. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Sartre in just one hour. Here is a concise, expert account of Jean-Paul Sartre’s life and philosophical ideas in this short audiobook. Entertainingly written and easy to listen to - this also includes selections from Jean-Paul Sartre’s work with suggested further reading, and chronologies that place Sartre in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Kant in just one hour. Immanuel Kant taught and wrote prolifically about physical geography yet never travelled farther than forty miles from his home in Königsberg. Appropriately, his philosophy strenuously denies that all knowledge is derived from experience, insisting instead that all experience must conform to knowledge. Kant’s aim was to restore metaphysics.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Derrida in just one hour. Jacques Derrida’s ‘deconstructionism’ is nothing less than an effort to destroy all ‘writing’ by demonstrating its inevitable falsehood. The writer writes but does not know what he is writing. Derrida argues that all texts have their own hidden agenda and contain their own metaphysical assumptions – the writer’s very language inevitably distorts what he thinks and writes.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Kierkegaard in just one hour.Although Kierkegaard was not a philosopher in the academic sense, he produced what many people expect of philosophy. He didn’t write about the world, he wrote about life – how we live and how we choose to live, particularly focussing on the individual and the notion of his (or her) existence.

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Leibniz in just one hour.Leibniz was the first great German philosopher to produce an all-embracing philosophical system. He came to the remarkable conclusion that space and time do not exist – they are mere superstitious assumptions. Only things exist and only God is able to see things as they truly are – from a perspectiveless viewpoint. Yet the infinite of ultimate objects that make up the world (‘monads’) are not material: they are metaphysical and thus not subject to the laws of cause and effect.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hegel in just one hour. With Hegel philosophy became very difficult indeed – even the great man himself conceded that ‘only one man understands me, and even he does not.’ His dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to humanity, and included absolutely everything, its most vital element being the dialectic of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hume in just one hour.Hume reduced philosophy to ruins, denying the existence of everything except our actual perceptions themselves. The world is nothing more than part of my consciousness. Yet we know the world remains, and we go on as before. What Hume expressed was the status of our knowledge about the world – a world in which neither religion nor science is certain.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Machiavelli in just one hour. Niccolò Machiavelli’s work remains misunderstood - synonymous with wicked scheming and underhand politics - nearly 350 years after his death. His philosophy of statecraft was scientific and highly rational, leaving sentiment, and ultimately morality, to one side.

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Spinoza in just one hour.Spinoza’s brilliant metaphysical system was derived neither from reality nor experience. Starting from basic axioms (assumptions), by means of a series of geometric proofs he built a universe which was also God – one and the same thing, the classic example of pantheism.

Augustine’s Confessions details his personal struggles with morality, his spiritual crisis and the conversion to Christianity that ultimately led him to his major contribution to philosophy: the fusion of the doctrines of Christianity and Neoplatonism. This provided Christianity with a strong intellectual backing by tying it to the Greek tradition of philosophy. Augustine also produced important philosophic ideas of his own, including theories of time and subjective knowledge that anticipated by many centuries the work of Kant and Descartes.

Being and Time was published in 1927 during the Weimar period in Germany, a time of political, social and economic turmoil. Heidegger himself did not escape the pressures and his nationalism, and undeniable anti-Semitism in the following decades cast a shadow over the man, but not the work. Being and Time is not coloured by expressions of his later views (unlike other writings) and remains an outstanding document.  

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Schopenhauer in just one hour.Arthur Schopenhauer, the ‘philosopher of pessimism,’ makes it clear that he regards the world and our life in it as a bad joke. However, if the world is indifferent to our fate it doesn’t thwart us deliberately – its façade is supported by what Schopenhauer calls the universal Will. He saw this as a force that is blind and without purpose, bringing on all our misery and suffering.